


Tiny Words

by Rainboq



Series: How We Get Old [2]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Chloe's got some stuff rattling around in her brain., Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:34:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25993759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainboq/pseuds/Rainboq
Summary: Chloe's left alone with her thoughts, which are all about Max.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Series: How We Get Old [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1886578
Comments: 15
Kudos: 59





	Tiny Words

It’s the little things that nobody talks about. The little things nobody notices until they’re with someone for a while. Sometimes, Chloe thinks it’s the little things that are what matter.

Chloe’s always been one for grand gestures, huge displays of love and affection. Breaking into a school swimming pool. Running away from hell on a never-ending road trip. The time she spent what little money she had on fireworks so her and Max could share a new year’s celebration in the Arizona bad lands that first year. Working more odd jobs than she could keep count of to save up the deposit for their first, dingy, shitty, shoe-box apartment that they still lived in. Making an engagement ring out of a coat hanger and solder. They were her way of working up to the biggest, grandest gesture of them all.

Telling a lonely, heartbroken girl that she mattered more than anything else.

She could tell it still ate Max up inside. When they’d gotten to NYC, Max was still so devoured by grief that not even touring 37 states had been able to put real distance between her and what she’d done. The grief ate at her too, but she always clung to the core fact of it. Chloe mattered. She actually fucking mattered to someone.

It helped that the someone in question was Max Caulfield.

Chloe lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. The homework for her GED called to her. She was  _ maybe _ going to graduate high school.

At 22.

She can’t help the burning in her throat at the idea of how disappointed her dad would be in her for fucking up so hard. Not that she had much of a choice, life had handed her bad hand after bad hand. But now that Max had a steady, well paying gig with her photography she’d been able to cut back on working shitty jobs all the time and focus on what mattered. Max and making something out of the second chance she’d been handed.

Instead, all she can focus on is Max, which isn’t such a bad thing.

Max and her little things.

Part of her knows that Max blew her wad on her grand gesture to Chloe. Flattening your home town to save shitty old her was kind of unbeatable. If you didn’t count the cost. And counting the cost had lead to her having to physically restrain Max from doing something utterly stupid a few times.

Not that Chloe minded. She also didn’t mind that Max spent way longer at work than was strictly necessary. The overtime helped and her bosses appreciated it. And it gave Chloe time to do the one thing she’d spent 7ish years running from: being alone with her own thoughts. At first the whole thing had  _ really _ sucked and Max had been the only thing keeping her from doing something monumentally stupid out of grief and anger. A little therapy and actually taking her depression medication helped too. Then she’d moved on to being kind of disgusted at the world for where it had dumped her and what it had put them through. But she managed to hold together this time for Max. She didn’t try anything really dumb, even if her brain kept trying to kill her.

Once she’d made her peace with that bullshit, she started noticing things about Max that she’d never really paid attention to before. The little things. The little smiles she only gives Chloe when they managed to get out of the apartment for a little bit. The way her hands clutched at Chloe’s back every time they hugged like she was worried she’d somehow lose Chloe again. The way she’d sneak up behind Chloe when she thought she wasn’t paying attention and pepper the back of her head and neck in kisses. The way her eyes always light up when Chloe enters the room, like she’d found happiness again.

It's the little things that tell Chloe again and again what the big thing did.

That she matters.

That she hasn’t been forgotten.

That she was never forgotten.

And that, just maybe, she never will be.

Max has certainly taken enough pictures of her that there’ll be a record for a long time.

So, Chloe tried to return the favour in the only way she knew how. By never giving up on Max. She never had really, during those five long years. Even though she’d tried to tell herself that again and again with Rachel that she had. It had hurt less with that absolute hurricane of a woman, but the ache had always been there. The longing for Max to reach back to her in any meaningful way.

That it happened in such a spectacular fashion was probably fitting, given the circumstances. Anything less and Chloe might not have had it in her to take Max back.

As if.

If Max had given her a call or a letter over those five years, she’d probably have taken her back after  _ some _ grumbling. But Max would have found some little thing to do that would have brought all of Chloe’s barriers crashing down because that’s what she does.

It’s not that Chloe doesn’t have her own little things that she does for Max. She cooks, cleans, helps her keep things organized. She even shows Max a vulnerability she’s never shown anyone when it comes to sex, but she’s not sure whose benefit that’s really for. If she had to guess, probably both of them. But most little things she’d had to do as a matter of necessity because Max was such a mess there hadn’t been a choice.

She wonders if it’s because Max was always more of an artist. And art is about details. Which were never  _ really  _ Chloe’s thing outside of chemistry. Sure Chloe had drawn back in the good days, but she’d left that behind like everything else.

Maybe that’s something she can do for Max, draw.

Draw and get her homework done.

Probably in that order.

Ugh, she should probably do the homework first.

It’s not that it’s hard stuff, it’s just fucking tedious.

Tedious and due tomorrow.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.”

She checks her phone. Max’s work hours are technically over, but she knows that Max is going to be there for at least another couple hours. They need the overtime and Max is a perfectionist.

And it gives Chloe plenty of time to procrastinate.

And that time is gone now.

With a grunt she opens up her laptop and browses to the course page she needs.

She always fucking hated English.

She’s about a half an hour and forty-five words on her stupid essay about dumb shit she couldn’t care less about when she hears a key slot into the lock.

Her head perks up and she’s hustling to the door before the key has even finished turning.

School can wait, she has a Max to greet.

The door swings open before she gets there and instead of tugging Max into her eager embrace, she gets a bouquet of flowers in the face.

She blinks a few times, stepping back to focus her eyes on the spectacle thrust into her visage. The riot of colours resolves into actual flowers, Chloe had forced herself to learn what they meant so she could get Max a bouquet that had actually meant something on their first anniversary.  _ Damn, she went all out. _ The arrangement is a series of concentric circles and her eyes start with the outside, settling ferns, a sign of humility and love. Haloed by the ferns is the old classic, red roses. Within them magenta heathers; adoration and admiration. At the heart of it all were deep blue violets, signifying loyalty and devotion; and Chloe’s favorite flower. Blinking back tears she gingerly takes the flowers from Max’s grip and is greeted with her fiancé’s nervous smile. Before she can say anything, Max just starts talking like she had a whole speech prepared and rehearsed (which she probably did, because that’s just who she is). “Chloe, I’m really sorry about the last couple of months. I was… a shitty girlfriend. No don’t give me that look, I was. I-I was just so wrapped up in work and trying to get us into a better apartment that I wasn’t giving you the time you deserved. A-and now that we’re engaged, I need to do better for you.”

Chloe’s words choke on the lump in her throat as she flails to find what to say, but Max carries on. “I asked Laurie if me working less hours was okay and… Well she said she was going to ask me to spend less time working anyways because she was worried I was going to burn out.”

The only answer Chloe can give is tugging her fiancé closer by the scarf and lavishing her lips with a long, tender kiss. Max makes a happy noise in her throat as she presses up and into it, her arms wrapping around Chloe’s neck and tugging her into a deeper, more passion filled kiss. It takes serious effort to not drop the bouquet so she can hold Max with both arms, but she manages until the kiss breaks and they’re left pressing foreheads together. “Fuck, I love you.”

The words brighten Max’s already dazzling smile, her eyes sparkling. “I love you too!”

The moment stretches on and on until Max pulls back a little. “I should probably get out of my coat, get those in your mom’s old vase and get supper started.”

Choe blinks in surprise and cocks her head. “I can make supper. You’re my awesome fiancé who just got me an amazing bouquet and fucking crazy good news, why would you be doing it? And why aren’t we already tearing each other’s clothes off?”

A smirk spreads over Max’s beautiful features. “Because you have an essay to write.”

“FUCK!”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this little oneshot, I plan to do a bunch of work in this little continuity. Let me know what you think in the comments.


End file.
